911 Truth NOW! Former Foreign Secretary denies declassified email at Iraq Inquiry Today ~ Trial For War Crimes Inevitable

LONDON (Reuters) - Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw denied on Monday he had ignored legal advice that the 2003 invasion of Iraq would be illegal without specific U.N. authorisation.

Giving evidence for the second time in a month to the Iraq Inquiry, Straw said the advice from top lawyers at the Foreign Office had been "contradictory" and that the final decision on the legality of war lay with the Attorney General.

Two weeks ago, the inquiry heard from Michael Wood, the most senior legal adviser at the Foreign Office until 2006, who said he believed there was no legal basis for military action without a second U.N resolution.

Declassified documents showed that Wood had written a memo to Straw in January 2003 that using force without the U.N. Security Council's authorisation would be a "crime of aggression."

It followed a meeting between Straw and U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney which concluded Britain "would be OK" with taking military action without a further resolution.

Straw wrote back to Wood saying he rejected his advice.

"Far from ignoring this advice, as has been suggested publicly, I read Sir Michael's minute with great care, and gave it the serious attention it deserved," Straw said in a statement to the inquiry.

"So much so that I thought I owed him a formal and personal written response, rather than simply having a conversation with him."

Straw said Wood had been wrong to say there was no doubt that military action was illegal as there contrary views, as he said the legal adviser had acknowledged in a letter to the Attorney General the month before.

"The legal advice he offered was contradictory and I think I was entitled to raise that," Straw said.

Straw also told the inquiry team that negotiations for the first U.N. resolution would not have taken so long if Britain and the United States had not sought to make it clear that further authorisation was needed.

Straw, now Justice Secretary, also defended the decision not to give the cabinet the full details of the advice of the then Attorney General, who had wanted to say that the war was lawful but the arguments were finely balanced.

Straw said ministers would have been aware of the doubts because of arguments being waged in the media.

However, Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said Straw had broken the ministerial code over the issue, had misled parliament and should resign.

"It's absolutely ridiculous that Jack Straw, the secretary of state for justice, the minister in charge of the legal system, should suggest that ministers should get their legal advice from newspapers," Davey told BBC radio.

In his earlier testimony, Straw said that British involvement in the war would have been impossible had he decided to oppose it, such were the divisions in the Labour Party and the government.

He said he had never wanted war but the government had made "the best judgements we could have done in the circumstances."

(Reporting by Michael Holden)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE6173KV20100208?pageNumber=2&am...